Monday, October 27, 2008

A brief note. I drafted this back in October, then never posted it. I guess its time to do so, for historical purposes.

I guess it's time to get started on an outline and plan for NaNoWriMo, which starts this Saturday.

My basic plan to develop a complete back story for all of the events in Only Golden Fingers Could Play So Heavy, including other family members and events that occur outside of the play. The scope will cover at least 75 years, possibly more.

I'll probably start in 1948, with the meeting of I Mall's parents. In my original play, I dies at 75 years old. I may want to extend his lifetime as well.

I need to come up with additional names, and since "Spike" is probably a nickname, I need to come up with a real name and a reason for the name "Spike." I'll cover why Spike disappeared from the scene for a while in the early 70's.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

This entry is being made from an application on the iPhone called blog write lite. It seems to be relatively easy to use and it's nice to have the auto-correcting keyboard to fix my many mistakes. This could be another alternative to the entry method I use for NaNoWriMo.

It's just over a week before I begin my writing in earnest. I've thought about some stuff but haven't yet done any outlining or other specific planning. I ran across the wiki article about Spinal Tap and the backstory they've given the three members of the band. That's what I'd like to do for my story but in a lot more detail ( obviously).

It's also obvious that I'm going to have to do some proofreading to catch some of the errors that do sneak in.

Friday, October 3, 2008

I signed up to write a novel during the month of November, in a project called National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. To gauge what kind of daily effort this is going to take, I decided to do a stream of consciousness thing into Word until I reached 2,000 words (by its reckoning.) It took me 50 minutes to do so. Here it is, unedited, for you to waste your time reading, should you choose.

Just as an attempt to gauge how long it might take to wrote a couple thousand words, I’m trying to speed write until I get ther. Look slike WORD 2007 for Mac has a relatively decent word counter, so I guess this attempt to fill up the pasge with otherwise nonsense will be a fruitful expereicen in that I will be able to see how mnany words I am in fact tying. It will be hgoos to see what kind of effor it will be to write 2000 words in a single day. When I get startyed on November 1, I expect that I will have a hard time making thet number of words each day, but I will certainly try. They say the second week is the harsdest, so I will have to see how it goes at that time. What an incredivle virthday present it will be to have a completed novel by the end of November! Would that be a prize in itself? I also have to muyll over he possibility of entering the NaSoAlMo competetion. The National Solo Album Month, in November, not to be confused with the February Album Writing Month, which I have participate in.

I’ve written and rather rambling paragraph, and it was only 20 words. Oh, no, I can’t do it, I’m helpless and should abansodn the task right now. It’s just not feasible to do this, and what am I thnkning even taking on such a momentous task?

That’s no way for me to talk. That loser talk, and I am not a loser. Although I have lost in the past, it is not the way I roll anymore. I don’t give up. I need to do it all, nad be first to do it best.

I like to compare what I’m doing to running a race and seeking that finish line. If I do not cross it, it is a personal defeat, and I will never let that happen.

I guess the real test is how I’m able to keep up eth the deadline. I should have time this expiement to see what kibng of daily time commitment I’m trying to achevie. It’s probably about an hour or so. DO tou think?

I wish that I was a better typist and that I didn’t make so many mistakes which are pointed out by the word processor. At least spell check will help me. Should I turn on auto-correct? Does it work, and are there risks in getting it to do what I mena, rather that do what I say?

Here’s we are at the ¾ page are and my word count is up to 440 or so. Not quite 25% of the way, but it is flowing out of me like a fountain. I’m listening to the iPod while doing it and and artist named Steven Mark is on right now. It’s an artist that I found on AmieStreet, a music service that I’ve downloaded a lot of stuff from over the past couple of yesr. Its not a bad service, although there is a lot of crap. Most of what I’ve picked up is free, so you get what you pay for.

eMusic and Audio Lunchbox offer some better quality stuff, from noted artists, but there is a monthly fee for them.

Just wasted a few seconds to take a drnkm from mty Chai Tea. It’s the Trader Joe’s brnad dry mixand it’s not too bad. Had a Vanialla Chai last nitgh at Starbucks on our traditional Thursday nitgh outing.

Wow, I’ve filled a page now woth this dribble and am approaching, nay have exceeded 600 words. It’s getting close to 33% and wil hit that mark in about two more sentences, I suppose. May three. Or four if they are as short as that last one. His is really a stream of concisouness thing, nd I wonder if I should publish this to my blog as a hilarious example fo what can be done by just brain dumping.

I guess I really will do that, and see if anyone bothers to make a comment. Hey! If you’ve gotten this far, why not comment about the drivel you see here, and what you think my chances are of completing a novel in the 30 days of November.

“What?” I hear you say. “You taliking to me?”

“yeah,” say I, “and what of it?”

Oh, sorry, I asked you. I shoud be nicer. Well it the pressure, you know. Here I am at 750 words, and still have another 1250 to go. I’m not even at the halfway point and all I can spew is what is coming out of my head. You see, I can’t actually write what will beome my novel because that would be cheating if I started now.

I guess I can talk a bit about what it will be. I’m going to novelize “Only Golden Fingers Could Play So Heavy” to try to flesh out the story and get some more progress on my play. That means that while writing the novel, I’ll not be working on the play, but I guess that’s the sacrifice that I’ll have to mayke.

It’s crazy, I know, to even think that I’ll have enough time to do such a think. I can barely find the time to do the other things I need to do: yardowork, working on web sites, other projects aroubd the home. Pluse the activities related to 4Forty days of Purpose, joining Ascension. Gettibg ready for the holidays and whatever else I think might be claiming my time in November. We’ve got two bothdays to think about, andThanksgiving to boot. Hey, did you know that “GIVE THANKS’ can be rearranged to spell “THINK VEGAS”? We have some Thangiving blocks that we put out each year that I like to rearrange. Well, we though Vegas and made it happen. We were going to go in October, next week in fact, but the opportunity to go opn Labor Day weekend came up and we couldn’t pass it up. It was a weekend of Todd Rundgren adventures, with a “It Was Forth Years Ago Today” Sgt. Pepper tribute tour on Friday night, and a Todd Rundgren private party and concert on Snday night. Plus a weekend of fun activities which included a trip to the Star Trek Expereince io its final weekend at the Hilton (possibly anywhere) and just a lot of fun gambling (a little, I don’t like to lose, like I said, and that means money too).

Well, that little bit of narrative ddid get me past the 50% point so I guess I’m now in the home stretch. If you are still reading this, you mst really be interested in how it turns out, and I have no idea where it’s going to go. Think I’ve exhausted all of the possible things I could write about in this short amount of toime? Well, I hope I haven’t. But I am going to tak a short 30-60 second break to check on a voyule of things. Repoort back in a moment.

Well, that was probably more like a two minute break, but you proably couldn’t tell, could you? I had a doa quicjk check on e-mail and take care of a web iste update for a potluck happening here at work.

I have an event web page that I created that allows other to have signups in their prganixation Its sort f a template, although I don’t open it up for general use. I take the informaitonrovided and created an site for them. Then they administrer the vent and collect money etc. It works pretty well and is firly popular, but it’s got a long way to go before it’s something that I would make publicly available outside of work. Someday, I may convert it to use MySQL instead of Berkeley DB to handle the data storage requirements, and it woul be cool to redo it in PHP instead of Perl, thouhgh I’m actuly more comfortable writing in Perl.But PHP interface with MySQL so nicely. I’d really like to strengthm my OPHPskills, and take a crack at a Web 2.0 type of application, Ths really have the potential to be a good Web 2.0 type of page.Hmm, Radiohead just came up on the iPod. That’s nice. Haven’t listened to them enough lately. This cut is from Amnesiac. I might havr to become an Amnesiac to finish writing the novel if I can keep up the pace I need to do to write 50,000 words in a months time. I amd now cloing in on 75% of my goal for this attempt, and will get there in a could , three for four sentences, I suppose.

Radiohead In Rainbows in another one I should give a listen to again soo. I’m listening to a playlist I call “New Stuff” which means it’s stuff I’ve loaded into iTunes (and hence into my iPod) that I haven’t listed to on the deveice yet (75% reached). Of course, I’ve listed to the CD before, but just not to this album on the iPod. My ipod 80GB have only about 2 GB left. I’m almost done with digitizing my entire CD collection. I’m u to the U’s (that grammticaly incorrect punctuation, other wishe is looks like Us) Apostrohes are hard. Anyway, I’ve already done Utopia, and had also skipped ahed and did XTC and Yes, so there are those that OI done have to do gain. I think maybe about 25 nmore CDs to go? But since I’m running out of space on the iPod, I have to remove something els. AmieStreet stuff is the first to go. I like to keep the eMusic, Audio Lunchbox and CDs on there. I have more that 18,000 songs on there now. I could listend continuously for about 50 days before having to repeat. Of course, that would mean no sleep either.

I hve listend to my whole collection at time, in artist alphabetical order. It takes a while, usually about a year. I also take a break to listen to new stuff in the meantime. Now that I’m an avid podcast listener (an aside here, just passed 1667 word which is the daily minimun to get to 50,000 words in 30 days. I’m [picking 2,000 as a goal to make sure I can possibly have some slack time.)

Ok, as I was saying, since I’m and active podcast listener, it cuts down on the number of CD tracks that I can listen to. I usually listen to eight hours f podcasts each day, which is good during the work day, because I’m at a desk, but if I am out and about on weekends or on vacation, I fall behind. I’m taking a hort vacation next week, and I know I will have some 30+ hours of podcasts to catch up on when I get back. Usually some get tossed, just because I can never catch up if I listen to them all.

I have an iPhone, but it currentl does have the possiblility fo downoadeding posdcasts while on the road, so I won’t be able to keep caught up.

We’re going to Santa Cruz, techinacly Brookdale, for afew days and we are looking forward to the trip. Cece gets a week off each October, so it’s a god time to travel, and we sort of think about it as our anniversary vacation, since outr anniversary is October 16. We will be celbrating 32 years of marriage this year. It’s ona Thursday, so we wil combine our night out with our traditional Starbuck’s night to make the evening really special. Plus, we can’t forget the ne tradition of having Root Beer on our anniversary that we started last year. All because of a pre-wedding vow that we would make root beer after we got marrie. We finally did last year, but decided it was easier just to order root beer. The end.

About Me

There are plenty of lengthier bios to be found on my web site. However, here's the short version.

Online, I'm primarily known for my Todd Rundgren Connection website, the first (established in 1994) website to feature Todd Rundgren, even ahead of the artist's itself. Through these efforts, I also helped establish ToddFest/West, an annual gathering of Todd Rundgren fans held each year in Northern California.

With the success and early entry of the TR Connection, I was also instrumental in developing the first web sites for Larry Tagg, John Ferenzik and Lucid Dreamers as well as independent musician Gilly Nils.

I introduced web sites for various organizations in the Lutheran Community in Sacramento, California beginning in 1995. I developed early sites for Sierra Pacific Synod events and the local cable TV program "Lutherans ALIVE!" for which I was also an Executive Producer.

I also used the web to gather information for the Rio Linda High School Class of 1971 30 year reunion.

I developed and maintain a number of internal web applications for my employer, the California Department of Water Resources.

I play guitar and am the Praise Band Director for Lutheran Church of the Ascension in Citrus Heights, CA. I was formerly leader of the praise band How Majestic at Calvary Lutheran in Rio Linda, CA.

I've written two Rock Operas, a play, two monologues and 1 1/2 novels. The monologues were performed at the Thistle Dew Dessert Theatre in Sacramento, CA, and I've acted in a production at the Thistle Dew in the summer of 2011.

I've been married to my wife Cece since 1976, have two adult sons and a toddler granddaughter. I've recently started researching my wife's paternal family, and have discovered a lot of previously unknown information.